The related question has already established the overall dangers of secondhand smoking.
I'll focus on the claim that it's likely or possible that secondhand smoke can cause more damage to the inhaler than the smoker.
The British Lung Foundation claims that it is more dangerous to the inhaler in this manner
Passive smokers inhale smoke breathed
in and out by smokers. They also
breathe in the smoke from the burning
tips of cigarettes. This smoke
contains more of the harmful chemicals
than the smoke which has passed
through the cigarette filter.
To add more from Joe Zasadzinski a UCSB professor of chemical engineering who researched this
Second hand smoke—the fumes and
particulate matter, both drifting
directly from burning cigarettes,
cigars, and pipes (sidestream smoke)
and exhaled by smokers (mainstream
smoke)—contains more than 5,000
chemical compounds, including the same
multitude of carcinogens and toxins
inhaled by smokers, including carbon
monoxide, cyanide, benzene,
formaldehyde, and arsenic. (It’s a
Group A carcinogen, along with
asbestos, benzene, arsenic, and
radon…)
“The chemistries of primary and
second-hand smoke are basically the
same,” Zasadzinski says, “although
“people argue about concentrations a
lot—about who gets more.” When they
suck on cigarettes, smokers are, of
course, intending to inhale a hefty
hit of nicotine-laden smoke. However
“the smoker has a filter on his or her
end of the cigarette,” Zasadzinski
points out, “but there’s no filter on
the secondhand smoke that comes out
the other end. It’s tough to say who
gets the worst of it—the active smoker
or the passive bystander.”
Regular smokers, however, develop some
degree of resilience to the persistent
assaults on their lungs, notes Kamlesh
Asotra of California’s Tobacco-Related
Disease Research Program (TRDRP).
Non-smokers don’t, so second hand
smoke causes more damage to their
lungs than direct smoke does to
smokers, Asotra says. (TRDRP disperses
funds from state cigarette taxes to
researchers—including Zasadzinski.)
To look at the effects of second-hand
smoke, Zasadzinski, working with
Patrick Stenger and Coralie Alonso,
also of UCSB’s Department of Chemical
Engineering, and researchers at UCLA
and UC Davis, focused on a crucial
component of the respiratory system:
the thin film of liquid on the inside
of the lungs. This epithelial lining
fluid helps the lungs function and
protects them from damage. “If you
smoke or you’re around smoker, this is
the first place the smoke will hit…”
Zasadzinski says.
To study how second hand smoke affects
lung surfactants, Zasadzinski and his
colleagues used biologically-based
replacement surfactants in a lab setup
that replicates how smoke interacts
with the fluid lining of the lungs—“a
very, very elegant” method of
mimicking what happens in a living
lung, Asotra says.
The researchers produced second-hand
smoke by burning cigarettes in
controlled conditions using a “smoking
machine” at UC Davis’ Institute of
Toxicology and Environmental Health.
They exposed purified water to this
smoke for six hours, to create a
tainted brew that they then used to
test the effects of second-hand smoke
on replacement lung surfactants.
Zasadzinski and his colleagues
reported their results recently in the
international journal Biochimica et
Biophysica Acta.
The extent of the smoke damage to
surfactants was “very surprising,”
Zasadzinski says. The researchers
focused on two proteins that are
important in the surfactant function,
and found they were both “really badly
chewed up” by second-hand smoke. Smoke
exposure changed the chemical
composition and structure of the
surfactants in the study—most likely
by damaging crucial proteins
This will highly depend on the level of exposure to the smoke, time spent daily in such exposure, and in the case of "smoke from the burning tips" the proximity to such "burning tips". How much time would a family member be spending next to the smoker's cigarette each day?
I cannot find a more accurate article quoting Kamlesh Asotra and whether any scientific study was carried out to prove this statement, though he has been quoted in this Berkeley study on Third Hand Smoke
Now for some overall stats that I came across, a study on
Environmental tobacco smoke and cardiovascular disease. A position paper from the Council on Cardiopulmonary and Critical Care, American Heart Association
AE Taylor, DC Johnson and H Kazemi
Office of Scientific Affairs, American Heart Association, Dallas, TX 75231-4596. quotes
The risk of death due to heart disease
is increased by about 30% among those
exposed to environmental tobacco smoke
at home and could be much higher in
those exposed at the workplace, where
higher levels of environmental tobacco
smoke may be present. Even though
considerable uncertainty is a part of
any analysis on the health affects of
environmental tobacco smoke because of
the difficulty of conducting long-term
studies and selecting sample
populations, an estimated
35,000-40,000 cardiovascular
disease-related deaths and 3,000-
5,000 lung cancer deaths due to
environmental tobacco smoke exposure
have been predicted to occur each year
Some more recent studies in terms of numbers are available and a report of a scientific refutal on the effects of passive smoking which seems to be biased and incorrect.
This link states about lung cancer alone, but does not cover the gamut of other diseases non-smokers can be affected by
The relative risk of lung cancer among
active smokers is about 17, while the
relative risk of lung cancer among
passive smokers is about 1.3
